Semiconductor components, for example, power semiconductor components, are known that have a semiconductor body and a pn junction in an inner region of a semiconductor body and an edge structure or an edge termination in an edge region of the semiconductor body.
A component structure having a pn junction is found both in bipolar components, such as diodes, bipolar transistors and IGBTs, and in unipolar components, such as MOSFETs. Although these components differ with regard to their behavior when they are driven in the on state, what is common to these components in the off state is that a space charge zone propagates, proceeding from the reverse-biased semiconductor junction, as the reverse voltage increases.
In vertical components, the pn junction runs substantially parallel to one of the sides of the semiconductor body. Without additional measures, in such components the dielectric strength is reduced in the regions which are adjacent to the pn junction in a lateral direction. This is usually the edge region of the semiconductor body, that is to say the region arranged adjacent to a side area or edge area of the semiconductor body that runs in a vertical direction between a first side and a second side of the semiconductor body. The inner region containing the pn junction usually has a larger area than the edge region.
In order to increase the dielectric strength in the edge region and thereby to achieve a voltage breakdown in the larger-area inner region by the maximum reverse voltages reached, a wide variety of edge terminations or edge structures are known. Such edge terminations have the task, when a reverse voltage is present, of reducing the curvature of the field line profile in the edge region and of reducing the field strengths that occur in the edge region relative to the field strengths that occur in the inner region.